Empire's Foundation

Skills

Skills advance by use. Some things which used to be skills are now class features, namely Skill – Climb, Skill – Open Locks, Hide & Move Silently (now called Skill – Stealth); Spot and Listen have combined into Perception, and the function of several “interaction” skills has been taken over by the Conflict! system.
At first level, you choose a number of skills in which to be “proficient” (given in the class descriptions). You get a +2 bonus to all of these skills. You may be proficient in any skills. Depending on your class, you may gain proficiency in additional skills as you level up.

Making skill checks:

Each skill is tied to a particular Ability Score. When you make a skill check, roll a 2d10 (or more). If the result is less than or equal to your ability score plus proficiency and experience bonuses, you succeed. If the roll is higher than your ability plus proficiency and experience bonuses, you fail. Particularly difficult tasks may add a die to your roll check according to the following table:

Simple – 1d10

Average – 2d10

Hard – 3d10

Complex – 4d10

Extremely Difficult – 5d10

Skills and Experience bonuses:

Each successful use of a skill under pressure earns one SXP, or skill experience point. When you have accumulated 7 SXP in a class skill or 14 SXP for non-class skills, you receive an experience bonus (plus 1) to future checks in that skill. Further increases require 7 plus (current XP Bonus) successful uses of the skill (times 2 for non-class skills). Remember lucky number 7. “Under pressure” is an intentionally vague term, to allow a wide variety of situations to qualify. Performing a sample of music to obtain work, listening under difficult circumstances, balancing to avoid a damaging fall may all qualify.

For more mundane uses of skills, 20 hours of practice in a week will gain one SXP. Up to two skills may be “practiced” upon during a given 7 day period. For example, a bard may spend 3 to 4 hours a day wandering the streets of a city strumming her lute and trying new variations, performing impromptu pieces for passersby and judging their reactions, etc. After one week of such low-risk practice she will have earned one SXP

Compound Checks:

Some activities are more complex than simply using a single skill. In these instances, a series of skill checks may be required, possibly in conjunction with straight ability checks. If any of the checks fail, the task may not be completed successfully, but may be partially completed, depending on circumstances.

Opposed Checks:

Opposed skill or ability checks are rolled with 1d20. Higher degree of success wins. Example: Tordek and Kronk are having an arm-wrestling competition. Tordek has a strength of 16 and rolls a 5. This is a success by 11 points. Kronk has a strength of 18 and rolls a 5 as well. But since he has a higher strength score, his success is by 13 points. Kronk wins the match.